Doppleganger is the German word for "double walker." It is an identical version of oneself that is thought to accompany every person. The phantom has  symbolized bad luck and even death. In Norse mythology a "vardoger" is a ghostly double who preceeds a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance.

One of the most famous and documented experience was a series of incidents that happened to a woman named Emilie Sagee. It was documented by author Dale Owen. The story was told to him by a first hand witness by the name of Julie Von Guldenstubbe, the second daughter of Baron Von Guldenstubbe. Julie was thirteen years at the time and was a student at a school in Germany in 1845.

The French headmistress at the school, Emilie Sagee, was known by the faculty for her kindness and charm. She was very well liked by her student body as well and was regarded as an honest and trustworthy person.

In the middle of class one day while Emilie was writing an assisgnment on the blackboard, what appeared to be an appirition apeared right next to her. The students that were in the room stared in amazement. Almost as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared.

Another amazing incident that happened that same year was witnessed by the entire student body of 42 students the same year.

The girls were assembled in their classroom as they were preparing for their sewing and embroidery class to start. Emilie Sagee was just outside of the class window attending to the small garden that the students had planted. The supervising teacher was called away into the hallway after another headmistress called her to ask her a question. Very slowly Emilie's doppelganger appeared in her chair that she normally sat it. All 42 students saw it and some ran to the window and clearly saw Ms. Sagee still picking flowers from the garden.

One of the girls was so in awe she was brave enough to walk up to the phantom presence and attempted to touch it. It was documented that she felt an odd resistance in the air surrounding it.

Emilie Sagee claimed to have never seen her doppleganger herself.

 John Donne, the 16h century English poet, stated that he was visited by a doppleganger while he was in Paris. Not by his but his wife's. She appeared to be holding a baby. Donne's wife was pregnant at the time. The woman appeared to be in great distress. At the same moment he saw her doppleganger his wife had given birth to a still born child.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, still considered one of the greatest poets of the English language encountered his doppleganger in Italy. It silently pointed toward the Mediterranean Sea as it approached him one clear day. He told friends and relatives of what he had encountered. Not long after the incident, just before his 30th birthday in 1822, Shelley died in a sailing accident, where he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

 The Queen of England was shocked to see her doppleganger laid out on her bed. She died shortly after.

 Guy de Maupassant, a French novelist, claimed that on one occassion his doppleganger entered his room and took a seat opposite of him.

 The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the 18th century confronted his doppleganger while riding on his horse one day. The twin didn't look at him as he passed on a horse also.

Abraham Lincoln saw what he thought was an illusion of some sorts after his election. He saw his reflection in a mirror and also saw the phantom twin standing next to him. The twin looked alot paler and weak compared to the real Lincoln. It bothered him so much he mentioned it to his wife the same night. She said that she believed that the paleness of the other face was an omen that he wouldn't live through his second term. This is adapted from Washington in Licnoln's Times (1895) by Noah Brooks, who claimed that he had heard it from Lincoln himself on November 9 1864, at the time of his re-election, and that he had printed an account "directly after". He also claimed that the story was confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln.

    " It just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great "hurrah, boys", so that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected at nearly full lenght; but my face, I noticed I had two seperate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On laying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler-say five shades-than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it-nearly,but not quite, for thing would once in awhile come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night I told my wife about it, and few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost after that, though I once tried to very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a "sign" that I was to be elected to a second term in office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term."

In 2006, scientist Shahar Arzy and his colleagues at the University Hospital Genevea, Switzerland had unexpectedly reproduced an effect strongly reminiscent of the doppleganger phenomenom via the electromagnetic stimulation of a patients brain.

Just another mystery of life; or mystery of the brain?

If my doppleganger showed up at my house I'd put her butt to work. She'd be very busy. I don't think she'd make another apperance any time soon! My kids would scare her away!